June 2012

I just finished Camryn Manheim’s self-acceptance manifesto, which has the same name as her one-woman show, Wake Up, I’m Fat! Though I’ve admired her from afar for years and loved her in tiny roles like her portrayal of Snow White in The 10th Kingdom, I now want to watch everything she was ever in, from The Practice to Elvis to Ghost Whisperer—most of which I’ve avoided because of other actresses I’m not particularly fond of.

In the text, we get to learn a lot about Manheim as she takes us on a journey through her life, focusing most of it on her own size. Unlike me, she was a thin child and didn’t get fat until later in life, but that didn’t stop her from encountering the same fashion fascism, discrimination, hate and self-hate, and general fatty abuse that many of us know quite well, often on a daily basis. Unlike many of us, however, Manheim has this amazing, take-no-prisoners attitude in which she refuses to be treated like a secondhand citizen.